Al-Kitaab Grammar II

Subject Pronouns in Arabic  - الضَمائِر

We         نَحْنُ	I        أنا
You (Plural) أنتُم	You (Male)أنتَ                                               You (Female)أنتِ
They  هُم	He/it (Male)هُوَ                                             She/it (Male) هِيَ

The list above does not include the dual pronouns.

Arabic has three types of personal pronouns: Subject, Object and Possessive.

The list above contains the most commonly used subject pronouns.

Note: English Grammar Review

Subject Pronoun: I as in “I ate a shark.”

Object Pronoun: Me as in “A shark at me.”

Possessive Pronoun: My as in “My pet shark ate my friend.”

 Plural – الجمع

Plurals in Arabic are something that almost every student has a difficult time with. In English there is one regular plural pattern (adding an S) with a few exceptions (children; or as my aunt says chillins). Arabic on the other hand has over ten plural patterns. Personally I don’t think that it is possible or even beneficial to memorize these “formulas,” but that could just be me being lazy. I remember being very frustrated with pluralization (btw I like inventing words) when I first started Arabic. However, I no longer really have to think about it. I do not have the patterns memorized (ie I couldn’t write them out on a blank sheet of paper) but I do have a sense feel for them and I have gotten pretty good at guessing. Once again my advice to new students is to expose themselves to as much Arabic as possible (from Native speakers or highly fluent non-native speakers) and to really listen.

The first way that we distinguish between plurals in Arabic is by defining nouns as either Human Plurals (ie humans) or Non-Human Plurals (ie everything else). This distinction is important not because there is a difference in the patterns but because the agreement rules differ. As I have mentioned in an earlier post (perhaps; maybe not) in Arabic, nouns must agree with their adjectives in number and gender.

Human Plurals

 Human Sound Masculine Plurals – جمع مذكر : ون/ين

Human Sound Feminine Plurals – جمع مؤنث: ات

Broken Plurals – جمع تكسير

Unlike the first too examples these plurals do not follow a set pattern this is where you simply must memorize expose yourself to enough Arabic until you can begin to get a feel for these patterns.

Note: If in a crunch situation and you do not know a broken plural just use the sound masculine or feminine form. For example if you wanted to say students and didn’t know that the plural of طالب  is طلاب you could get away with saying طالبون, you would be wrong but native speaker would most likely understand you and quite possibly correct you.

Non-Human Plural Agreement

As I said earlier the main reason for distinguishing between Human and Non-human plurals is because the agreement rules differ (agreement rules: agreement between nouns and their adjectives in number and gender).

The principle rule for non human plurals is that they are always treated as singular feminine. This is a rule that simply must be memorized and the best way to do that is to speak with a native speaker who will correct you when you make mistakes.

Examples:

هذه الدينوصورات جوعانة : These Dinosaurs are hungry!!!

وجبات الكفتيريا مقرفة! : The cafeteria’s meals are disgusting!!

الجملة الاسمية – The Nominal Sentence

Any sentence that begins with a noun (اسم in grammar terminology) is a جملة اسمية.

Nominal sentences are made up of a مُبتَدَأ (subject) and a خَبَر ( predicate). The predicate can be a noun, adjective, verb, prepositional phrase etc.

Examples:

الدينوصور يسكن في بيت كبير  -The dinosaur lives in a big house.

مبتدأ – الدينوصور

خبر -  يسكن في بيت كبير

As you can see this sentence has a verb in it. It is still considered a nominal sentence with the predicate made up of a prepositional phrase.

نو ارلينس مدينة كريهة – New Orleans is a stinky city.

مبتدأ – نو ارلينس

خبر – مدينة كريهة

You may be asking yourself where the “is a” is located in the Arabic sentence. There is no “to be” verb (am/is/are) in the Nominal Arabic Sentence. It is simply understood. The trick is to be able to identify the خبر  and the مبتدا ( not necessarily in that order). The to be verb would be between the two.